10. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? (1993)

Although widely considered as Leonardo Di Caprio’s big coming out party as an actor, many forget its titular lead: Gilbert Grape. Depp’s performance as teenage Gilbert covered a wide spectrum of emotion and decision, love and choice. Just what was eating Gilbert Grape? As Gilbert, Depp kept it cool to display exactly how much a growing, young man can put up with a stock boy job, an affair with a married woman, a morbidly obese mother, a mentally handicapped brother, and the new dream girl in town—all without imploding. Grape didn’t fit the “quirky” mold of the roles Depp took in Tim Burton’s films or in John Waters’ Crybaby, but he hit it out of the park as the troubled teen from the Hawkeye State.